Life, Death

"Life is what happens while we wait for our appointment with the mortician.
Although it is demonstrably true, you are no more likely to see that sentiment on a Starbucks cup that you are the words COFFEE KILLS."  [Dean Koontz, "Odd Apocalypse" p. 11] 

I received an email recently from someone who has not been getting my emails.  She raised the possibility, ever so carefully, that I might be deceased and some family member might be reading the email and not know who she is in my life.  That causes me to think again about Living and Dying and Being Dead.

BTW - this link is useful:  http://getyourshittogether.org

If you clicked on the link, you get the connection with my thinking about thinking about what life is and the inherent FACT that we are all going to die.  Whether from cancer or car wrecks, from disease or dissipation, whether at age two or twenty or ninety-six, what we consider "living" is bookended by not existing and then being dead.  How do we make ourselves useful during the "living" phase?

To me, that is a perennial question.  How might I go about paying rent for the air I breathe, the attention I ask people to pay to me, and the calories I partake of?

If there is no eternal context in which we live, then how am I different from the dandelion in my lawn that I earnestly try to remove?

What do you think?  Leave a comment and let us know.